The Middle S9E16 Review

Mike gets some big news at work in this week's episode of The Middle. Also, Brick is struggling in his health class. As this goes on, Frankie tries to find a chance to cry.

S9E16 "The Crying Game"
Mike is offered a promotion, which would take him to corporate. His employees have some interesting reactions when they discover that he is leaving. They want to throw him a party, and many of them also want to replace him. Mike somewhat gives a small speech when it is demanded out of him. It was fitting, how the man of few words didn't need to say many words to make an impact. When he had a brief emotional moment, it gave me chills.

There ends up being a really funny ending here, when it turns out that there is no space at corporate, so Mike will be doing his new job from the quarry. The interaction he has with the workers at the quarry when he returns is really funny, as they are irritated that they went to all the trouble of throwing him a party when they were going to see him again so soon.

Brick is struggling in his health class. He reasons that his teacher doesn't like him because she suffered through Axl, so he sends Axl to apologize to her. This ends up not going well, which is fairly entertaining. Brick turns to Sue next, whose interaction with the teacher ends up going a lot like Axl's, which I really enjoyed. It was also really great to call back to Sue's high school days, and how no one ever remembered her.

There is a hilarious line about how Frankie wasn't being graded when she let Brick go home with another family, while Brick is being graded in his class, and it's even better when she tells all of her kids that sometimes in life you don't always get the baby you want. That got a big laugh out of me. In the end, Brick discovers that the reason that his teacher doesn't like him because he licked her car, and when he explains how he is weird, she no longer has it out for him. It was a great ending, that fit into who Brick is, and his problem was resolved in an interesting way.

Also throughout the episode, Frankie is trying to find a time to cry. Her attempts to cry keep being interrupted, as happens when you're Frankie Heck. There isn't much to these parts of the episode, though I did enjoy when Mike insisted that, since she doesn't remember what she was going to cry about, there's no point in her trying anymore.

I wasn't a fan really of the Frankie trying to cry parts of the episode, but the rest of the episode was great. Both Brick and Mike had funny stories with great endings, and I especially loved Mike's. This was a very strong episode, though I'm sad that we are now two-thirds of the way through The Middle's final season.

Score: 9.5/10

What did you think of "The Crying Game"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!